


Haunted

by hannasus



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 00:59:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4646433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannasus/pseuds/hannasus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, staring at the name engraved in the stone. It could have been five minutes or an hour. Time had lost some of its meaning for him lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> I am ... so sorry about this. I don't know where it came from. I'm not kidding about the warnings, though, kids. Please read responsibly. Here be angst. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Etc., etc., etc.

A prickle of awareness on the back of his neck alerted him to her presence. Oliver looked up with tear-stained eyes and saw Felicity standing under a tree a respectful distance away.

He was surprised to see her; she’d never come to the cemetery before.

Blinking to clear his vision, he turned back to the tombstone in front of him. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, staring at the name engraved in the stone. It could have been five minutes or an hour. Time had lost some of its meaning for him lately; he had trouble keeping track of it.

He laid the bouquet of flowers on the grave with shaking hands and then forced himself to turn his back on it.

Felicity waited for him, watching silently as he walked toward her on his way back to the car. She was wearing his favorite dress today: the red one with the cut-out in the front.

“I didn’t think you liked it here,” he said when she fell into step beside him.

“I don’t,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “But you were here.”

He nodded, at a loss for words.

“You’ve been coming here a lot, Oliver.”

He nodded again.

“I’m worried about you.”

“I’m okay,” he answered reflexively.

She stopped walking. He stopped, too, and turned around to face her. Her fingernails were painted red to match her dress. Yesterday they’d been the same color blue as her eyes.

“Don’t do that,” she said, frowning at him.

“Do what?”

“Lie to me. You’re allowed to admit that you’re struggling, you know.”

What did she want him to say? That he felt like his world had come to an end? Like he’d lost a part of himself? That he didn’t even know how he was going get through the rest of today, much less tomorrow or the next day?

What good would it do to say the words aloud? It wouldn’t make them any less true. It wouldn’t make anything that had happened more bearable.

She took a step towards him. “You don’t have to protect me anymore.”

He felt the pull of her as the tides felt the pull of the moon. He ached to reach out for her. To touch her the way he used to touch her. His hand twitched at his side and he stubbornly balled it into a fist.

Things were irrevocably different now between them. They couldn’t go back.

“I’ll always try to protect you,” he said quietly.

She gave him a sad smile. It was so beautiful it hurt, piercing the numbness that had enveloped his heart _._

“You have to try to move on,” she told him. “You have to live your life.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Oliver.” She didn’t say anything else, just his name. But it carried the weight of everything that hung between them, unspoken and unfinished.

“I can’t let go,” he said helplessly. “I don’t know how.”

Her lower lip trembled, but she didn’t speak.

“ _Please,_ Felicity.” He did reach for her then. And just as he knew it would, his hand closed on empty air. 

There was nothing tangible to hold onto anymore.

Her absence was a tear in the fabric of the universe. It was a gaping black hole that threatened to swallow him up. It was dark water closing over his head, sucking him down into the cold depths below.

His hand fell back to his side and hung there uselessly. “I miss you so much I can’t breathe sometimes.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “I know,” she said, reaching up to wipe it away. “I’m so sorry, Oliver.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“It’s not yours either.”

He would never be able to accept that, but he didn’t bother to argue. They’d had this conversation before. It never ended anywhere good.

She pressed her lips together, the way she did whenever she was frustrated with him. He always wanted to kiss her when she did that, to kiss the irritation right off her face. He’d actually done it a few times, and it had made her laugh. He should have done it more, when he still had the opportunity.

There were a lot of things he should have done more.

“It’s getting dark,” she said. “Go home, Oliver.”

“Will you be there?” he asked, suddenly afraid.

“If you want me there.”

“I want you there,” he said. “I always want you. I’ll never stop.”

“Then I’ll be there,” she promised.

“Good,” he said, blowing out a breath. He felt safer when she was there. Saner. Even though a part of him knew that it was an illusion, that the opposite was true. That he wasn’t sane at all.

He didn’t care.

This was all he had left of her. And he would never let go. Never.


End file.
